The origin of the begging the question fallacy can be traced back to the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.His original Greek writing was later translated to Latin, and one of the 13 fallacies listed in De Sophisticis Elenchis (Sophistical Refutations) was phrased as âpetitio principii.â. For example: “If we are willing to reduce the number of jurors from 12 to 10, then why not reduce it to just 2 people, 1 person, or none at all?”. These slopes often involve a positive-feedback mechanism, where the initial action in question will set off a chain reaction that reinforces itself. For instance, the following is an example of a slippery slope argument in the context of bioethics: “If we allow voluntary assisted suicide for terminal patients now, then in a few years it will become a commonplace way to get rid of unwanted people in order to reduce medical costs.”. Also find spoken pronunciation of slope in Sinhala and in English language. The most common metaphors used for this purpose are the following: These metaphors often used together with slippery slope arguments, as analogies meant to illustrate the slippery slope being discussed. Take The Bait is an idiom. Meaning of slippery. Such arguments tend to follow specific patterns, such as saying that if a certain act is allowed in the present, then it will eventually lead to behavior that is similar to that of the Nazis. A slippery slope is an argument that suggests that a certain initial action could lead to a chain of events with a relatively extreme result, or that if we treat one case a certain way then we will have to treat more extreme cases the same way too. In general, slippery slopes are primarily associated with negative events, and as such, slippery slope arguments are frequently used as a fear-mongering technique. Information and translations of the slope in the most comprehensive dictionary definitions resource on the web. Slippery slope arguments can be either reasonable or fallacious; their validity depends on a number of factors, such as the likelihood that the initial event in question will lead to the proposed end result, and the phrasing used to convey this likelihood. Various metaphors are frequently used in order to describe the concept of slippery slopes, and particularly the concept of causal slippery slopes. Critics have raised concerns about a slippery slope leading to eugenics. Note that a slippery slope itself can lead either to a positive outcome or a negative one. When it comes to causal slippery slopes, a proposed slope is generally fallacious because it ignores or understates the uncertainty involved with getting from the start-point of the slope to its end-point. At least two events are necessary for a causal slippery slope, though any a number of events can appear in between them, with each event in the chain occurring directly as a result of the previous one. In general, whether or not a certain slippery slope argument is reasonable and logically sound depends on a number of factors, which in turn depend on the type of slippery slope argument that is used. ... work with pitch pine and Virginia pine to increase our chances of detecting site differences at the two slope positions. Answer: The idiom a slippery slope means that an action will quickly lead to a series of other actions that will lead to a downfall. For example, the following is an example of a reasonable slippery slope argument: “If we allow people to leave fires unattended anywhere in the forest, we will likely end up with a forest fire on our hands sometime in the future.”. However, it’s important to note that this assessment will often be somewhat subjective, which means that even though it’s possible to quantify, to a degree, the likelihood of a certain chain of events, there is no definitive way to determine at what point this likelihood is so low that the argument in its favor becomes fallacious.